Lost & Lonely: A Phantom of the Opera Story
by Crave Kashmir
Summary: Terrified at losing her scholarship, Christine is willing to take help wherever she can find it. But after so many years of being lost and alone, is she in danger of throwing herself into the arms of the wrong man? A Modern Phantom Story.
1. Chapter 1: Opportunity Knocks

Author's Note: While I have based my own story primarily on Leroux's work, I couldn't help but have some influence from Andrew Lloyd Webber's Phantoms and even a bit of Rebecca Morse's Girls Next Door. This is not a page-by-page modernization of the original novel, I have taken quite a bit of license with a number of characters, settings and even the plot. (Don't say I didn't warn you.)

* * *

Lost & Lonely: A Phantom of the Opera Story

Chapter 1: Opportunity Knocks

The world faded away around her. It was just the two of them now, just the man who loved her and Christine. He held her close, cradled her head against his chest. His heartbeat never wavered in its rhythm; she could hear its steady, reassuring beat through his chest. Unlike her own heart, which she could hear pounding against the walls of her ribcage as if it were trying to break free, filling her ears with the sound of her own blood pumping through her veins. She could barely make out his words.

"I've never loved anyone as I love you," he confessed.

"I…" Christine swallowed. She should know what to say. This had been a long time coming, and she should know exactly how to respond. "I…"

"I know! You've been hoping I'd say this sooner," her lover prompted.

"Yes! I've been hoping you'd say that sooner, I've been hoping you would say that since we first met," Christine's voice fluttered with nerves of this confession. "I loved you since I first saw you across the fence, but you never seemed to notice me."

"I never stop noticing you," he assured her, and leaned in to kiss her.

All the blood rushed to her face turning her an extremely unattractive shade. She was supposed to be enamored, to stand on her tiptoes to reach his lips sooner, to have been looking forward to this kiss since the day she saw him, but she froze. Her lover pressed on, though, meeting his lips to hers.

"And curtain!" Mr. Lombardi's voice called.

The rest of the intro acting class clapped politely, despite knowing that the scene had not gone according to script. Jack released Christine from his embraces and stepped back, completely casual and relaxed at what had just happened between them. Of course he was calm, Christine thought. He hadn't forgotten his confession of love and then froze like a possum playing dead at the thought of kissing someone he barely knew. Did that make her strange for being affected? Or him strange for _not_ being affected? Christine couldn't be sure.

"Jack, Christine, let's talk about your performance," Mr. Lombardi said, clapping his hands with enthusiasm that Christine thought was uncalled for. "Jack, very good delivery. I felt you really had feelings for Christine. I think your blocking needed some cleaning up; you were too far away from one another when you started your monologue, it looked a little awkward – a good director would have fixed that for you. Christine, you shied away near the end there. I liked it, it showed an apprehension, a fear of rejection. Very deep."

Christine could barely keep her face straight. Mr. Lombardi was wonderfully flakey when it came to critiquing their performances. Any other acting instructor would have known that she was nearly paralyzed with stage fright, and not attempting to imbue her performance with planned "apprehension."

"Work on you memorization, Christine. Jack – B+, Christine – C+," the instructor declared with a final clap of his hands.

"Now! Before we break for the week, I have big news." The other students leaned forward eagerly. "It's taken two years of negotiations, but we have finally gotten the music and dance departments to join us for a major stage production. Next semester, the three departments will join together for the largest production our school has ever attempted – the staging of _Faust._"

The acting majors were thrilled, even those who didn't know anything about opera or _Faust_; they understood "big production", which was sure to require lots of actors. Christine didn't quite see what the production had to do with her. She was not taking acting class by choice; as a theater design major, she was required to be in the class. As a _first year_ theater design major, she certainly wouldn't be allowed anywhere near the set design of _Faust_. If she were lucky, she might make it onto the stage crew, though she suspected they would take one look at her thin frame and send her away for fear she would break herself trying to haul a piece of scenery around.

"The opera won't be performed until next semester, but it is going to be such a huge production that we need to get a move on with auditions so rehearsals can start first thing in January. The first auditions will start next week. I will give extra credit to anyone who tries out, and _super_ extra credit to anyone cast in the performance!" Mr. Lombardi declared.

Now Christine was listening. Her acting grade was appallingly low, to the point of threatening her scholarships in her very first semester of college. She needed all the extra credit she could get, and wrote down the dates of the auditions eagerly.

"If you're planning to audition – and I highly recommend the experience – I suggest you prepare a song." He paused as the students groaned. "_Faust_ is an opera, people! Operas have songs!"

Christine's heart leapt both in excitement and fear. She used to love to sing. Her father always thought she could make a career out of her voice alone, but she hadn't done anything with her voice since he died. Without his constant needling to practice and audition, she just didn't have the courage or the initiative. She still sang, but only in the anonymous tiled confined of the girl's bathroom.

Still, she sighed, extra credit is worth the nauseating fear of public humiliation and rejection.

The audition consumed her thoughts as she left the studio. What could she sing? Should she even try to win a major role? She heard the others discussing their monologue and song options as they all left, but they did not include Christine in their discussions. She was an oddity around the drama department; most drama majors were larger than life and twice as loud, but Christine was quiet, aloof. This cool attitude combined with her pretty looks made her appealing to many, but she remained distant. She was far from friendless – an attractive girl with a pleasant personality was sure to make friends wherever she went – but she was neither loud nor colorful, which made her unusual in the motley theater department. Luckily for Christine, the theater embraces the unusual with open arms.

The chilled autumn air did not blow the anxiety from her mind, much as she wished it could. Her grade depended on this audition; her scholarship depended on her grade. She found herself desperately hoping for a role in the opera, wondering if Mr. Lombardi's "super extra credit" might manage to bring her meager grade up to an A.

"Oh no." Christine suddenly stopped her progress across campus, startling those walking close behind. She ignored their stared and their muttering. She had bigger worries than the consternation of her classmates. Mr. Lombardi had said the opera would be a joint effort with the music and dance schools. Auditions would probably be open to music majors, too. Every vocal major in the university would be auditioning.

Christine sank to the grass, completely disheartened. How could she hope for a part now? The acting department was larger and might have more say in casting, but the vocal students were more talented than she could even hope to be after so many years without her father's tutelage. Surely the vocal students would get the lead roles. She wondered if the chorus would automatically be made up of the university chorus. Perhaps she could squeeze into the chorus as an anonymous soprano. If she were to stand a snowball's chance of even that limited a part, she would need practice. A lot of practice.

The girl jumped to her feet and started toward the library. As she moved, panic built. What if everyone was having this same idea? She walked more quickly, anxiety growing to near panic attack levels as she practically ran across the green quad, dodging Frisbees and jumping over the bookbags scattered haphazardly on the lawn. She ran up the granite steps of the library and burst through the doors, slowing her pace only to appease the security guards in their little booth just inside the main entrance. The men eyed her suspiciously as she rushed through the metal detectors and pushed her way to the front desk.

"Music and choral techniques books?" Christine asked before the desk clerk could even say 'good afternoon.'

The clerk typed the query into the antiquated ivory desktop, which Christine suspected was older than the student who worked it. Christine tapped an impatient rhythm on the counter waiting for what felt like an hour for the computer to return an answer. The boy wrote a few catalogue numbers down on a card for her. She didn't have time for politeness and grabbed the card before he had finished writing the final digits.

"Thanks!" she called across the lobby as she raced toward the stairs.


	2. Chapter 2: First Sight

Lost & Lonely: A Phantom of the Opera Story

Chapter 2: First Sight

Christine was shocked by her own behavior. She had always been proud of the good manners her father had taught her. Along with her deep blue eyes and musical talent, her manners were one of the few things she had inherited from Gustave Daae. She always held doors for the elderly, women with strollers or people burdened with bags or boxes, just as her father had. She invariably said 'please' and 'thank you' regardless of how annoyed she was. Yet here she was pushing students out of her way to get up the stairs faster, ignoring shouts of irritation and the occasional cry of pain as she tread on someone's foot. Christine ran up the stairs two and three at a time, convinced that the elevator was filled with her competitors for the books that would help her gain a place on the stage. She needed those books, and if she had to step on a few toes and knock over a few people to get to them first, then so be it!

The top floor of the library held all the voice and music reference materials, as well as sheet music from nearly every composer recognized to have a teaspoon of talent. She walked as quickly as she could down the stacks, her eyes seeking the alphanumeric combination the young desk clerk had given her. She built up speed as she searched, her shoes landing heavily on the linoleum. She should have put more effort into being quiet, but aisle after aisle was empty so she felt no obligation. There was no one to annoy with her labored breathing and loud footsteps.

She had beaten them all to the prize, she realized with a grin.

The vocal technique books took up nearly three entire book cases on the top floor, hardly a wealth of information given the number of book cases that existed in the music library but it was likely more information than Christine knew. As it was she was slightly disappointed. She had hoped for far more books on the lower levels of vocal skill, she still considered herself a beginner. Every book here was for the advanced level. She could not be disappointed by the number of books; there were more than she could read inside of the single weekend before the auditions began. She looked for the most promising titles and pulled them from the shelves, hauling her collection, heavy in her thin arms, to the nearest table, then ran back for more. Knowing she was alone on the floor, she didn't care about being quiet now.

Christine pulled out a notebook, opened it to a clean sheet of paper and readied herself to learn. She opened the nearest book and started reading.

Four hours passed Christine by, during which time she had not learned much more than when she had started. Her father, wonderful and talented as he was, had not bothered to teach his daughter the appropriate terminology. She had only been 13 when he passed away, so she would not have grasped many of the advanced ideas and terms even if he had tried to use them. This left her struggling to understand what the advanced, college-level books were trying to explain.

Mercifully, her muddled thoughts were interrupted by the sharp chirp of her mobile phone. She snapped it open quickly, whispering her greetings. She glanced around to apologize to anyone that might have appeared while her nose had been lodged firmly in her books, but found she was still alone after all that time.

"You at the library again?" her caller sounded annoyed.

"Yeah, of course, Meg, where else would I be?"

"Here. Getting ready for the party," Meg reminded her. "You need a rest from studying, and I need a chaperone."

"What time is it?"

"It's eight now, the party starts in an hour. Get your scrawny ass back to the dorm, eat, shower and get dolled up, girl," Meg commanded. "It's Halloween and we are going to rock this campus!"

"Yes, Sir!" Christine saluted her phone before hanging up.

Meg was sweet, but she sometimes had too much of her father's military attitude in her. If Christine didn't pack up and head back to the dorms now, Meg would march across campus to scour every inch of every floor looking for her. The dancer could be very intimidating when her dark brown eyes were focused on someone she felt owed her. Back in September, while on the subway, Meg Giry – all 67 inches and 113 pounds of her – stared down a stoke broker who had nearly broken her foot; the grown man, close to a foot taller than the dancer, had practically pissed his pants before fleeing the underground.

With Meg's vengeance in mind, Christine quickly picked five of the books she thought might be helpful and ran down the stairs to the front desk.

* * *

The crowd was growing too large, crushing Christine and her borrowed pink tulle tutu between Dracula, Catwoman and a pillar supporting the ceiling. The air was growing thick with the smell of sweat and illegally obtained alcohol, and Christine was growing ever more claustrophobic. She did her best to excuse herself as she shoved through the raucous partiers with a strength and speed that only a panic attack could give so small a young woman. Meg could have cleared herself a path with a wave of her hand, but then Meg had enough presence that she would never have been crushed against a pillar in the first place.

As the mass thinned, Christine's speed increased. She needed to get outside, to breathe the comparatively fresh air outside the dorm. Not caring what she looked like rushing through the hallways of the residence hall, one hand clutching at her heart, she pushed past partiers in various states of undress which they masqueraded as costumes.

Fresh air, at last! Well, as fresh as the city could provide. The trees at least gave the illusion of the world being clean and the air healthy. It was cool and dry air at least. And whatever the parts per million of carbon di- and monoxide, it did not smell of questionable hygiene and cheap beer.

Calmer now, Christine thought about returning to the party. She was there to keep Meg from doing anything that she would regret – a blonder, only-slightly-larger version of Jiminy Cricket. But the thought of returning to the party did not appeal to her so soon after her escape, she needed a few minutes to recuperate. Unfortunately, without the pounding music and overlapping shouted conversations her thoughts had time to return, to remind her that she had so much to relearn if she wanted to pass the audition and remain at college. She pulled the small book from her bag and found a spot under the nearest lamp.

Christine cursed Meg for not allowing her to wear glasses. They might have ruined the illusion of her prima ballerina costume, but without them anything more than a foot from her face began to blur; anything farther than arm's length was just moving splotches of color. She pulled the book close enough to read, but found her nose rubbed the pages and left smudges of ivory make-up. She cursed Meg again and slapped the book shut.

Christine sighed, so much for doing what she wanted to do. It always seemed that someone else was in charge of her life. Since she met Meg at orientation in July, the dancer had taken it upon herself to make Christine more social. Before that Mamma Valerius, her adopted mother, tried setting Christine up with every eligible boy that happened to attend the same Orthodox cathedral as the old woman. Before that she was subjected to her father's drive to make her the greatest pre-pubescent soprano in North America. Christine was now 19, officially an adult in the eyes of the state, and supposedly capable of making her own life decisions, but she found it so easy to let everyone else make them for her… even if she hated what they decided, like having to suffer a night at a drunken college party.

Even attending Garnier Arts College had not been her decision. The decision came down to money, of which she had none. Professor Valerius, former dean of the college of music and friend of her father, had made arrangements for Christine to receive a nearly full scholarship to Garnier. The scholarship could not be transferred to another college, so Christine had no choice but to attend. Christine looked around at the campus, even this newer section was beautifully manicured and sculpted into a neoclassical paradise of learning. The lamps along the sidewalks managed to throw an artistic pattern on the pathways and bricks walls. Somehow everything in this relatively tiny section of the city had been contrived to produce artistic thoughts and images. It was a haven of the arts, and she felt completely out of place.

Christine allowed herself one last self-pitying sigh before starting slowly, grudgingly, up the steps to the dorm. Perhaps being alone with her thoughts was not the best place for her to be at that particular moment. Perhaps Meg was right, that being amid a mindless crush of noise and smells was exactly what she needed.

As she reached for the handle, a scream came from across the quad. It was Halloween, screams were to be expected, but this was not a theatrical scream or a playful one. It pierced the night, cutting through her thoughts and through the distant music and laughter of the party. Christine had never heard anyone scream like that before, it was pure terror. She had to know what happened. Maybe someone was hurt. Then again, maybe it was someone being murdered by a psychotic lunatic. Even with that thought, she ran across the lawn to see what had happened.

Superman came running across the grounds pulling Tinker Bell after him as fast as the girl's stilettos would allow. They were both deathly pale, Tink was crying.

"Oh god, Mark, did you see?"

"Just keep running, Beth! It might be following us!"

"It?" Christine wondered. If it were a crazy person, SuperMark would have called it a 'him' or a 'her,' not an 'it.' And last she checked the stray dogs and campus cats that hid in the bushes around the dining hall were not enough to make a boy as muscular as SuperMark flee in abject horror.

"Perhaps it's a ghost," Christine mused. The campus was reputed to have a number of specters residing in the older buildings. The ghosts of Mr. Tombs, Miss Lawford and Mr. Gillman, maintenance and cleaning workers who had died on the job, all lived on various floors of the dance building, the second oldest building on campus. The oldest building on campus, the massive European-style theater, was supposed to be haunted by quite a few of its former stars, patrons and regular ticket-holders. Nonsense, certainly, but it made Christine's work study job as a janitor far more interesting.

She moved quietly along the path down which SuperMark and Tinker Beth had just escaped, looking for signs of life… or afterlife. She saw in the shadow of a tree what looked like a figure huddled on the ground. It actually resembled a black blur sitting in a charcoal grey blur beneath a golden blur. However, Christine had gotten quite adept at interpreting her nearsightedness, and it looked like a person – a man by the size of the black blur—sitting on the dirt below one of the autumn golden maple trees.

"Are you alright? Did you see what frightened those two?" Christine asked.

"I did." The black figure replied. His voice little more than a whisper.

"You saw? What was it?"

"It was me. My face." He hissed.

"Seriously? That must be some mask you've got on!"

"Mask? Mask!" The man was on his feet instantly; his blur substantially larger than she would have expected, and as menacing as a blur could be. She could make out only the difference between his dark clothes and the white of his face. He stepped closer, and she saw the slight color difference on half his blurry face, as if he had left the house with his horror make-up incomplete.

"I removed my mask," he said. "It was what lay beneath that will give them nightmares. You, too, I imagine."

"Doubt it." Christine responded.

"Then you haven't gotten a good enough look. Come see!"

He grabbed her wrists and yanked her closer. Christine felt sure her wrists were about to break, he was squeezing them so tightly. She would have been close enough to see his face clearly, but his grip was bringing tears to her eyes. She cried out.

"Horrible, isn't it!"

"No! You're hurting me! Let go." She kicked him, though with the tears blurring her vision worse than her myopia, she couldn't be sure what she was aiming at.

"Get out of here!" He threw her away. "Leave me alone!"

Christine fell to the ground, scattering the contents of her bag and covering Meg's old dance costume in dirt. She turned to curse at the dark, inconsiderate blur, but she couldn't see his shape anymore.

"Weirdo," she muttered.

* * *

A/N: Who was that un-masked man?

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	3. Chapter 3: Just a Shadow

Lost & Lonely: A Phantom of the Opera Story

Chapter 3: Just a Shadow

Hidden in the branches of the golden maple, the unmasked man watched. He heard the girl spitting her curses at him; she could not know that he was within hearing distance of her bitter, though admittedly accurate, words about his behavior. She did not see him, just one more shadow among the dark branches. But she _had_ seen him, seen his face and she cried out not in fear or disgust but in pain. He could not understand; no one had ever looked upon his naked face without crying out. This was unprecedented. What could it mean?

He watched her collect the objects his fierce rejection had ejected from her bag. His eyes were well adjusted to the darkness – a given when one had lived so long in it – and he could see everything she groped for among the grass and fallen leaves. She reached for his mask, not realizing what it was, and shoved it with another choice word into the bag along with her wallet, a make-up case, a small can of anti-rapist mace and, most interestingly, a copy of Advanced Choral Techniques Vol.I by Arthur B. Cranston. One final feel over the ground assured her that everything she had dropped had been retrieved, and the girl was on her feet.

She looked considerably shabbier than she had prior to meeting him, though the dirt and leaves sticking persistently to the coarse tulle of her tutu were hardly the worst of the costume's problems. Even in the patchy light provided by the lamps along the pathways, he could make out the bunches and wrinkles of pink fabric where the costume had been temporarily resized with safety pins to fit her miniscule frame; the tiara tipped jauntily on the bun that had loosened upon her impact with the ground.

Tattered angel, he thought.

The battered ballerina marched purposefully back to the noise of the party. She did not glance back once to look at the tree, nor did she bother looking for him in the shadows she passed. Would she have noticed him if he had been hiding there? Unlikely; no one ever saw Erik unless he wanted them to. He was only a ghost.

The girl stomped up the steps, making her displeasure known to each one, before she disappeared into the building. He jumped down from the tree and walked the opposite way. She would not be returning to the scene of their encounter and he had no intention of entering the building after her. They _would_ meet again, but on his terms. Everything was always on Erik's terms.

* * *

Christine made her way back through the hallway with much more grace, though little more dignity, than when she had left just fifteen minutes previously. She managed to pick most of the leaves out of the pink and white tulle, but was still streaked with dirt. Her attempts to wipe it away just seemed to push it farther into the material. She could barely afford to launder he own clothes, and didn't want to consider what it would cost her to clean the complicated embroidery and beading of this costume. The thought did not improve her mood.

She brushed past the buzzed boys that would have offered her drinks if she bothered to glance their way. Legally speaking they were men, but they were clearly still boys by the way they were dressed and acting. It would have been easy to attribute this line of misandrist thought to her recent encounter, but it was one she had quite often about the males she met, even when they were sober and dressed normally.

She shook her head, hoping to dislodge her thoughts and mood. She was here to help her friend, and she needed a clear head for that. She also needed to _find_ her friend for that.

It took some time and three dark, embarrassing corners before Christine found Meg. The girl was throwing her miniscule curves against a boy Christine recognized as a sophomore theater major. His name was Brad and he wanted to write scripts professionally. Christine doubted he had gotten so detailed about himself with her friend.

The dancer was tipping the scale of drunkenness well beyond tipsy and into unattractively drunk. She was attempting to whisper seductively into the sophomore's ear, but it came out as a slur which greatly diminished the appeal of anything she had to say. Her costume more than made up for this. She was dressed as Mata Hari though no one would have known unless she told them. She was wore a beaded and bejeweled halter top and sari skirt, both of which revealed more than enough of her dance-toned physique and mocha skin to make her words irrelevant to whomever she focused her attention on.

Christine sighed. Time to do her duty.

She pushed closer and considered her options. Meg was taller and stronger than she, and in her current state she would put up quite a fight. Christine, however, had other options than physically pulling her friend away. There was a benefit to being the odd girl out in the drama school; she was always there but rarely included, and after the first few weeks everyone took her to be part of the scenery, a shadow in the back of the classroom and in the hallways. It was like the drama building was playing out a live soap opera before her every time she entered. She had seen and heard enough to give her ammunition against half the party's members, including one handsome wannabe-script-writer who happened to be making out with Mata Hari.

She breathed in deeply, filling her lungs, and called out to the room, "There's a girl named Carrie looking for her boyfriend Brad! Anyone seen Brad? Brad, you're girlfriend's looking for you!"

Considering her diminutive stature, her voice carried quite far. Brad could not help but hear her. He shoved Meg away and searched the room. He looked around the crowded party, terrified. If Carrie caught them, it would not be the modern Mata Hari who would be executed for fraternizing this time around.

"Where're you going?" Meg pouted and tried to pull him back to her.

Brad offered little more than a stutter and shrug and shoved his way back into the crowd to find Carrie.

"Where's he going?" Meg repeated herself, this time to Christine.

"Back to his girlfriend," Christine said. She wasn't one to sugar-coat, not even to appease the self-esteem of her intoxicated friend, but she did add, "Sorry."

"You're just jealous that you don't have a boyfriend."

"Probably."

She wasn't about to start an argument or even a moderately meaningful conversation with a scantily clad, drunk college freshman. If given the opportunity, she would prefer to never have such a conversation. Instead, she spent the rest of the night and part of the next morning guarding her friend from countless not-so-unwelcome advances. Meg was not particularly pleased with her friend that evening, but was more than grateful when she woke up alone, fully clothed and in her own dorm room.

* * *

A/N: This is where I begin to take liberties with the characters. Meg is described in the book as having black hair and eyes, so I make her half Haitian.

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	4. Chapter 4: Shadowed

Lost & Lonely: A Phantom of the Opera Story  
Chapter 4: Shadowed

The guard swept through the stacks on each floor, shining his light into each shadow. He knew the stories as well as any of the students. There were supposed to be ghosts all around campus, including the library. He often heard noises, but never saw anything supernatural, which was fine by him. The day he had to report on seeing a ghost would be the day he turned in his flash light and badge.

His final check complete, the guard locked up for the night.

The lights went out. The library lay in silent darkness, shadows bobbing near the windows where the lights from the street lamps outside danced with the tree branches. The shadows played across the keyboard of the clerk's computer like fingers searching for a title. More shadows joined and passed over the power button. The computer glowed to life, the light from the screen making the branch shadows vanish but the later shadows stayed.

These black shadows poked insistently at the keys, taking the computer to the search screen to find the last borrowers of Advanced Choral Techniques Vol.I by Arthur B. Cranston. The screen flickered and the list of names appeared along with their student ID numbers and contact information. Three female names appeared on the list, one for each copy of the book; each name was written by the shadows onto a piece of paper before the computer was turned off and the shadow branches went back to playing with the keyboard.

"Kathryn Alvers, Lindsay Csere, Christine Daae," Erik, the shadow, whispered the names from his list. He tried to pair the name alone with the ballerina he had met, but he knew names were no indication of personality or appearance. He would just have to wait and see which name was right. For Erik, the waiting was sometimes just as rewarding.

He jumped back up into the air conditioning duct, leaving no trace that he had ever been in the library. He was just a shadow, a ghost; no one ever knew he was there. That's what would make it so easy to find her again. He could watch her like the shadow he was and she would never know. As he watched, he would find out if she, Kathryn, Lindsay, Christine or whatever her name was, was really as special as she seemed.

When he found her, she would have a new shadow.

* * *

Kathryn Alvers was easy to find. Her sorority house was the largest on campus, and the messiest following Halloween. Empty cans and kegs littered the front of the house, announcing to any who had not been invited what a great time they had missed. Costumes hung from the trees and from the windows along with ghostly sheets and three rolls' worth of toilet paper. Kathryn herself was in the bathroom when Erik found his way into the building. The house's ancient heating ducts were not as roomy as the modern air conditioning lines in the library, but he was skilled at manipulating his body into tight quarters. He eased his way through the ducts and found the room he sought. He could hear retching two doors down in the common bathroom shared by this floor. Kathryn's door was ajar and small puddles of sick lead from her room to the shared toilet.

Erik was disappointed. Although, to be fair, she was not the only resident of the sorority praying to the porcelain throne. He closed the door quietly and set about searching her room. The room was in disarray from the party the night before. Discarded dresses and costumes were piled on her bed and floor, Erik's usual care at leaving no trace would be wasted in such a space. He threw aside a dress that covered the girl's dresser. She was unnaturally attracted to stuffed animals. Colorful plushies with arms stretched wide as if begging for a hug covered most of her dresser top, leaving barely enough room for her to work at applying her makeup. While a bit of childlike enthusiasm was endearing to him, the beady eyes staring from every direction was unnerving. Erik lived in a world of darkness, not of pink, fluffy teddy bears.

Framed pictures hung everywhere. None of the faces in the pictures looked like his ballerina. The girl had an unnatural number of friends, another reason she would make a poor match for him. Erik hoped Kathryn was not his ballerina. This social butterfly would never agree to live in his world.

His gloved fingers searched the handbag nearest the bed and came up with a student ID card. The blond in the photograph smiled winningly at the camera. Erik was relieved. This girl, attractive as she was, was not the one he was searching for.

* * *

Third year costuming major, Lindsay Csere, was asleep when Erik dropped in from the ceiling. She was more difficult to find than Kathryn had been. Her room was easy enough to locate, but she was currently sleeping in someone else's bed. Erik had spent an hour searching her room. He found countless costume sketches, fabric swatches and miniature costume concepts in the works, all of which Erik thought quite good. He made a mental note to keep tabs on Miss Csere's progress in her field. However, he found no photographs of the girl.

Luckily for him, Lindsay was a very considerate roommate.

She left a note:

"I'm spending the night at Jim's. Brumble Hall, Room 234. Call my cell."

So Erik worked his way through the roomy modern ventilation tubes of Brumble Hall. He looked down at the sleeping residents, most still costumed from the parties they had visited. Finally he arrived at room 234, where Lindsay and Jim slept. It was nearly six o'clock in the morning, but that didn't bother Erik. When he had a purpose he could work for days without food or sleep. And he had a purpose now. She was his purpose. He loosened the grate and dropped down to the floor. Typical of male college students, Jim's room was hastily cleaned for company. Most of his dirty laundry was shoved under the bed.

In the dim light of morning, Erik could see the two sleeping. He saw Jim's strong brow and sharply upturned nose. Erik listed painting and sculpture among his many talents. Jim's was a face he would gladly paint under normal circumstances. But when the handsome young man was potentially sleeping with the only woman to ever look at Erik without screaming in revulsion, Erik was not so kind. He saw only the flaws – the pimples lining the jaw, the hint of male pattern baldness already threatening the hairline, the weak chin that gave him a slightly rodent-like air. Erik enjoyed listing everything wrong with the boy's face before turning his attention to Lindsay.

His minutes spent searching Jim for imperfections had apparently been a waste. The brunette sleeping beside Jim was not his ballerina. What did it matter to him if the girl chose to spend her nights with a chinless, balding boy, Lindsay was not the girl he wanted.

That left only Christine.

* * *

A/N: Please pardon the unbelievably long delay in writing more to this story. I got distracted by Fallen, then by work, then by laziness. I'm easily distracted, can you tell?


	5. Chapter 5: Haunted

Lost & Lonely: A Phantom of the Opera Story  
Chapter 5: Haunted

"Christine Daae," he said the name; the last name on his list. It had to be _her_ name.

"Christine." He said it again.

"Christine." He savored each syllable as he imagined the ballerina attached to it. It was dark when they met, but he had seen her clearly. His eyes saw more in darkness than most saw in daylight. He saw her round face, so pale it seemed glowed in the yellow light from the streetlamps that dotted the sidewalks. He saw the tears running down her alabaster skin as he had twisted at her wrists in his anger. The girl's eyes, no, he corrected himself, Christine's eyes had grown round in shock when he attacked; he had seen their deep blue, nearly silver, color like that of the sea on a stormy day. Silver eyes, a precious compliment to his own gold ones.

Those silvery blue eyes looked on his unmasked face and the girl had not withdrawn from him. His behavior frightened her, not his face. True, that was hardly the makings of a great and lasting romance, but when it came to Erik and the fairer sex it was tantamount to the girl leaping into his arms and confessing her undying love. In his entire life he had no memory of anyone looking on him without a negative reaction. His own mother hid him away, ashamed at what she had produced but too fearful of letting him out of her grasp for fear of the scandal. His father had done an admirable job of trying to show his son some attention, but Erik remembered how the man only ever approached from and sat on Erik's left side where the features were relatively normal.

Erik now dared to hope that his thirty years of rejection had finally come to an end now that he had met her.

"Christine."

* * *

Even with the late night spent preventing Meg from pursuing whatever stupid whim or boy entered her head, Christine rose to her alarm. Meg grumbled from her bed at the noise, but she was far too inebriated to actually manage to do anything to stop it. Her smaller friend, however, leapt up with an impossible energy following only four hours' sleep.

Christine would have preferred sleep, but she knew that if she was to have a chance of winning even an obscure role in the chorus, she would need a lot more study and practice. Auditions started on Monday; it was her plan to get her audition out of the way as quickly as possible before the casting directors realized how much more talented everyone else was. It was the best chance she had. Unfortunately it meant she only had this weekend to prepare. Christine was grateful that she didn't have to worry about memorizing any music. She still had a few classical audition pieces in her head from childhood. It was the proper presentation of those pieces that escaped her.

She gathered the notes she had made while at the library and went to the gloriously acoustic girls' bathroom. It would have been empty at this hour on a regular Saturday, but, following the Halloween parties, her privacy was assured. She left the notes on the bench outside the shower stall and stepped into the shower. She tried Ave Maria first, it was her father's favorite. Before she even finished the song her notes were drenched and useless. The poor girl was left with only what she could remember from her readings and from the lessons that ended over six years ago.

She remembered she was supposed to open her throat when she sang and tried it on her second attempt at the song. Instead of a more resonant sound she ended up swallowing almost a gallon of water. As she coughed her throat ragged, she tried to think of something else. There were other childhood lessons she vaguely recalled about imagining a balloon in her chest, but she couldn't remember what that was supposed to do. After an hour under the falling water, she was impeccably clean, wrinkled as an 80-year-old and had a throbbing throat, but she didn't think she was singing any better than she had before. Worse than the soggy skin and sore throat, was the thought of how much she had allowed herself to forget.

Listening to her sing and teaching her to sing had been one of her father's favorite things, hers as well. Her fondest memories of her father were of singing for him. He had been gone for six years, and in that time she had all but stopped singing and had forgotten nearly everything he taught her. Her voice was his greatest joy, and she let it disappear. What did he think of her?

Thinking of his wasted effort and hope she started to cry.

* * *

The miniscule blond was pacing outside the doors at 10 minutes until the hour. She was braced against the autumn chill in her massive coat, a scarf wrapped around her hair, still damp from the marathon shower. It was well past dawn, yet some stragglers were still making their way back to campus from their all-night parties. They paraded back through the manicured gardens with equal parts pride and shame at their activities. Christine didn't pay them any attention nor they her. She checked her watch again, as if the hour would have come in the few seconds since she checked it last. She cursed the cold and checked her watch again, nine minutes till the hour.

She was slightly ashamed of herself for crying earlier. She hadn't done so in years. She cried during sappy television programs, but not during real life. Real life had already hit her pretty hard. It didn't really affect her all that much anymore. Nothing did, if she was to be honest with herself. She socialized and went out, but not all that much. She certainly didn't feel joy like she used to.

Earlier she cried for the lost memories; now, standing in front of the locked doors of the library, she wondered at the memories she would never lose because she never had them to begin with. What had she missed out on by shutting herself off?

She shook her head, afraid of the answer, and dislodged the thought. The last thing she wanted was to start crying again. She checked her watch again and started banging on the doors as soon as the minute hand hit the hour. The sign read that the library would be open at eight o'clock, and she was determined that they keep the sign's promise. She had work to do, a promise of her own to keep. She had told her father that she would keep singing, and it was about time she was true to that word. Right now it was about keeping her scholarship, but when she was sure her scholarship and future was secure she would start singing again.

* * *

There was someone snoring softly into a pillow, muttering sleepy complaints about boys. Through the metal grate, he couldn't see Christine or the sleeping girl with whom she shared her room. He had only heard her voice briefly, but he was certain this sleeping girl was not Christine. He was a master of imitating and identifying voices and knew a person's voice by only the briefest of sentences spoken.

It was too late in the morning for him to consider visiting her room. The sun had risen and it was already nearing nine o'clock. The sounds of some students rising came to him through the ventilation ducts. He was mad to even be in the ducts at this hour, but he had spent so many hours searching for the other two names on his list that he had only just found Christine's room. It was wasted time he could have spent learning about her, and now he hated the thought of spending another 12 hours in the dark.

He concentrated on the sleeping girl's breathing. It was deep and steady. Even with her mumblings he was certain she was sleeping soundly. His gloved fingers wove into the grate and he pulled it up and into the duct. He slid out and landed with only the dullest thud onto the floor below. His black coat was spotless, despite his hours spent in the various ductworks of numerous buildings on campus. He lived in shadows and watched from above and below, he had for many years. He frequented the ducts of the buildings listening to students talk and interact, listening to professors lecture and debate. The sturdy metal tubes never had a chance to gather a speck of dust, let alone leave any on his long black coat.

He paused to make sure the girl was still asleep. She didn't stir but continued to snore quietly. He looked down at her. He took in her long, thin frame; admired the rich brown of her skin, the smooth black hair falling from her head. Her face was thin, as all ballet dancer's faces were, but there was something in it. He recognized the curve of her jaw, the shape of her nose. He had seen them on another face, an older face, one he had employed for many years.

"Little Giry," he smiled. "Does your mother know how you spend your Friday nights, I wonder?"

In her sleep, Meg frowned and worry touched her brow.

"Now, don't fret, Little Giry, I will not reveal your secrets," he whispered, "if you do not reveal mine."

He turned to the other bed and saw it was empty. Christine was not there. Erik paused for a moment and feared that the girl had left the party with one of the numerous drunken idiots he had observed. His mind ran through the catalogue of faces he had memorized in the night, imagining which one would have dared to approach the girl he now pursued. He was plotting bloody revenge against whichever boy it might have been when he saw the ballerina costume hanging from a collapsible wooden clothes drying rack in the corner. It was the very one she had worn last night. Relief touched his disfigured brow.

He touched his hands to the costume. Christine, terrified of the cost of cleaning, had spent 30 minutes hand washing the delicate fabric. Dirt still clung to the beads and embroidery where she was most gentle to avoid more damage. Seeing the harm he had caused to it, he regretted treating her so harshly.

"I will make amends for my behavior," he promised.

His eyes looked to the papers hanging from the drying rack. They were still damp but dry enough for him to lift without tearing the fibers apart. He read each page of Christine's writing. They were the pages of notes she had taken from the vocal technique books in the library and had subsequently made useless in the shower. The topics ranged in level from intermediate to advanced, and covered every facet of technique. The notes were not structured, but random factoids written hurriedly.

"So, she is not a student of music," he said aloud and turned to Meg. It was rare that he had anyone to speak to directly; he had no intention of wasting the opportunity for a conversation with someone other than himself, even if that person did happen to be asleep at the moment.

"Then why carry an advanced book on the topic?"

He looked to the desk he presumed to be Christine's. She had her schedule pinned to the bulletin board.

"Typical freshman courses," he said. "That will tell us nothing, Little Giry. Oh, but what is this?" He pointed to the work schedule pinned below it. "Christine works nights in my music building? Has she been working there these past months and I paid her no attention?"

He looked to Meg for confirmation. The ballet student snored a bit more, which Erik took as her response in the affirmative.

"Right under my nose, cleaning the very floors I walk upon, and I couldn't see her… She is a Cinderella," he smiled, considering the best methods to win over his fairy tale princess. Meg snorted in her sleep, which seemed to give Erik an idea. He spun around to face the sleeping girl.

"What a thought! Little Giry, you have been most helpful. I will reward you soon enough."

He gave her a polite nod of his head before he jumped up, grabbed hold of the duct and pulled himself into the ventilation shaft.

* * *

She was not happy. Eleven hours she spent in the library, not counting breaks to run to the dining hall for food. Eleven hours of reading vocal technique books, scouring each chapter for useful information. Eleven hours of mind-numbing theory that left her questioning if she ever knew anything about singing to begin with. Eleven hours; it would have been more if she didn't have to go to work. She cursed the work study job for interrupting her studying. Yes, it helped pay for her education, but it was not helping her education at the moment. As she ran across campus to the music building, her mind stayed firmly on the top floor of the library.

On the one hand, Christine thought that if she had just stayed another few minutes she might have found something in the next book on the shelf. Something that would have let all the little scraps of advice she had written make perfect sense. Something that would make her good enough to get a role in the opera.

On the other hand, Christine thought that the eleven hours had been wasted. That all the time spent reading was going to make no difference to her chances.

She ran to the time clock and rang in at precisely seven o'clock. She secured her coat and scarf in a locker, but held on to her library book. As she pushed the cart across the carpeted hallways, she tried to balance the book on the handle and read it while she walked. Every time it fell, she cursed. The book stayed with her in the small concert halls, where she managed to mop each stage with one hand and hold the book open in the other. It lay open in her lap as she dusted the Steinways in the piano room. She kept her finger on the page while she locked the piano room and went to the vocal room next.

The lights were still on, an indication to the cleaning staff that the room had not yet been cleaned. She had cleaned the room dozens of times since she started at school, always marching in to do her work without fuss. Tonight was different. She felt an apprehension about going in. She felt like she was an imposter who had no right to be there, pretending to know things; like there was a force in the room that would expel her as a liar. This must be what the older crew meant when they talked about the presence they felt in the rooms sometimes, what they called a spirit or ghost. It was the first time she felt it, and it scared her a little.

"I'm just coming to clean," she informed the room. "Just cleaning."

She purposefully left the book in the hallway, and started to dust the room. She dusted the windows and the piano. She paused at the keyboard, newly free of any dust that might have settled there. She had just finished dusting several identical models in the piano practice room, but hadn't felt the need to touch the keys, to hear the notes. This room, however, was made for singing. Its acoustics were perfectly designed to enhance a singer's voice. She glanced around and poked at a single key. The note filled the room and hung in the air. She listened and very quietly copied the note with her voice.

"Just cleaning?" she heard herself say. She had been thinking it, but didn't realize she had said it aloud.

She hurriedly finished dusting the piano keys and turned the duster to the black lacquered wood. She wanted to try the note again, but was worried that she would get in trouble. She tried to ignore the impulse, but her eyes kept going back to the keyboard.

"Oh, go on," she heard herself say again.

She walked slowly back to the keys, and put her finger out. She pressed gently at the key, so gently it made no noise at all. She laughed at herself and tried again. The note rang out; she listened to it, memorized it and then repeated it with her voice.

"Much better," she told herself, though like before she didn't recall opening her mouth to speak.

* * *

A/N: Hello and thank you for reading my story. Here we see me taking liberties again. I've made Erik a rather young 30 years old here to make any potential romance between him and a college freshman more realistic. Really, if he were even close to the age he seems in the book that would make Christine hot for teacher and Erik a _very_ dirty old man... I'm sorry, but I'm just not into that. Nope, sorry.


	6. Chapter 6: Mind Games

Lost & Lonely: A Phantom of the Opera Story  
Chapter 6: Mind Games

Christine remembered that her father used to let her tune his violin. He used to say that she was pitch perfect and could tune it better with her voice than he could with any store-bought tuner. It seemed to her own ear that she was still pretty good. She matched the note of the piano perfectly. She smiled and finished dusting the piano. She brought in her mop and washed the floor quickly. The clock on the wall showed her that she should be finished with her work by now, but she was barely halfway through. All the time spent trying to read her library book while working had slowed her down considerably. She would have to rush to get out before 11 o'clock.

"You'll never succeed if that's all the effort you put in," her voice called to her as she left the room.

"What? I can't spend all night in here. I have to finish my job," Christine insisted to herself. "I guess I'll just finish reading my book later."

"Books won't teach you anything. You need to practice," her voice insisted.

She knew it was true. She had been thinking it as she sat in the library that morning, afternoon and evening. After spending so many hours in the library she ought to have some progress to show for it. The weekend was nearly over, auditions started on Monday and all she had was some pages of worthless notes. Her father could have taught her more in an hour than all those hours with the theory books had.

"Five minutes," her voice told her. "We'll start with five minutes tonight."

"'We'?"

"You and me," her voice sounded amused.

"I've gone nuts," Christine muttered to herself. But she shrugged and closed the door anyway.

Maybe, she thought. Maybe, there's a part of my brain that remembers what dad taught me. Maybe that part knows what all that crap I read means. Maybe it will teach me. Maybe it will help me. Maybe.

"Do you know how to sing scales?" Christine heard her voice ask.

"It's been a while, but I think I remember."

"Let me hear," her voice insisted.

Christine put her mop down, adjusted her posture and tried it.

"You are sucking your stomach in." Her voice said flatly.

"Am I?" Christine tried to force herself to relax. "Sorry, I'll try again."

It was an odd feeling apologizing to herself, especially for something she didn't even know she was doing.

"Better," she heard herself say. "But you are still not supporting your voice properly. Work on breathing deeply, with your diaphragm not with your chest."

"Okay," she tried again.

"You are still breathing with your chest." Christine heard some annoyance in her voice.

"Sorry, habit."

She heard herself sigh. "Rome was not built in a day. Finish your work, but breathe properly from now on."

"Alright."

Christine left, spending the rest of the night dusting, mopping and vacuuming with one hand pressed to her stomach to remind herself to breathe through her diaphragm. She looked an idiot and it slowed her work as badly as holding the book had, but she knew it would help her sing better if she breathed correctly. And she knew she would yell at herself if she didn't at least try.

* * *

Erik watched from the ducting as the blond mopped the floors one-handed, her other hand at her abdomen above her stomach. He was pleased to see she was putting some effort in. The girl had a passable voice even with her poor technique. With his help, she could be the greatest in the city. She was clearly a good student, and he was certain of his skills as a teacher.

He disappeared from the ducts, dropping down into the basement of the music building and disappearing through a hidden tunnel. He knew every inch of these buildings, having lived in them for the better part of his life. This college was his; his home, his domain. He knew it better than Garnier College's historian. Historians knew the pretty surface of the place, he knew its underside. Every trap door and tunnel, dark corner and secret staircase, he kept them all safe and working so that he could travel unseen and faster than anyone would have thought possible. At first knowing the dark places was a means to remain safe from hands that might harm him, then to remain unseen by those he wanted to learn from. Now, he would use them to remain unseen by her. After he behaved so poorly on their first meeting, he couldn't be sure she would respond favorably to meeting him again. Instead, he would speak to her, teach her, guide her. She would learn to trust him and rely on him. Then, when she had forgotten his behavior, he would show himself to her again. She would be his new masterpiece.

* * *

The school buildings were locked on Sundays. Normally this wouldn't bother Christine, but she wanted to keep reading in the library. She was sitting at her desk, her hand on her stomach as a reminder to breathe right. Her eyes were trying to focus on the unbelievably dull reading in front of her. She remembered vocal lessons being fun and playful. Her father had her stretch her arms out and squat like a sumo wrestler to help expand her lungs. He would tell her to sing all kinds of silly sounds while making the most ridiculous faces. To build her lung capacity they would run after air planes that flew overhead at a then unbelievable height. These books were nothing like those lessons. They were enough to put even the most serious student off the topic. She closed the book and tossed it aside. It fell onto her bag, still on the floor from her late arrival after work. Her bag clattered with the contact, the massive custodial key ring inside jingled.

Christine froze, her mind springing to an idea at the sound.

"I couldn't."

She looked at her bag and thought about the keys and all the locks they belonged to. She thought about all doors they could open.

"I shouldn't."

She had a key to the library.

She had a key to the music building and to the vocal practice rooms with their perfect acoustic design and gorgeous Steinways.

She even had a key to the massive theater with its red velvet seats, ornate proscenium arch and enormous stage.

She wondered what it would feel like to stand on that stage; to be at its center and feel the light on her face, knowing that every eye in the house was looking only at her. As a child she had performed at small venues, in local children's theater productions and choruses and before minor league baseball games across the river, but never had she set foot on a stage as large and beautiful as the one of the Garnier Theatre. Her fingers began to tap nervously at the simulated wood of her desk as she fought down the desire to go break into the locked buildings. Was it still considered breaking and entering if she had a key?

Last night her voice said aloud what she already knew to be true. Reading would not improve her voice enough to win a role. She needed practice. And she was far too self-conscious to practice in her room. The cement block walls had no sound-dampening at all. She knew exactly what movie her neighbor to one side was watching and that her neighbors to the other side were fighting over the same guy. If she started singing, and singing as loud as she would have to in order to stretch her voice and lungs, they would be pounding on her door inside of a minute.

"So really," Christine muttered, "I don't have any choice, do I?"

Before she could change her mind, the girl grabbed her bag and ran for the elevators. She hit the button repeatedly, impatiently, and pulled her coat on. Once outside in the chilly early November air, she had to fight the urge to turn around. Her brain yelled at her to stop, but her feet kept moving. Her feet brought her closer to the theatre, enormous and ornate. It stood five stories above ground. Rumors abound as to just how many stories there were below. She heard one maintenance worker say he made it to five levels below ground before he lost his way and had to turn back. Another said he had gone down six levels, but the old wooden staircase had rotten away and couldn't hold his weight to take him down any further. A city surveyor once said it was possible that the basement reached all the way to the river that ran below the city.

Christine stopped across the quad from the theatre. The building intimidated her from the moment she set foot on campus. It was the oldest building there and had influenced the creation of the school and, later, the architecture of all the buildings that were built around it. She already felt like an imposter attending the school, to even consider setting foot in the school's heart seemed sacrilegious. The bare-breasted sphinx statue that guarded the entrance seemed to stare her down as she approached. As a child, the statue would have sent her running home to the waiting arms of her father.

"I have to try," she whispered to it.

Her hands shook with enough violence to make her drop the keys. She finally managed to insert the key into the lock. It was simple work after that to turn it and push the door open. She glanced back at the sphinx, stone and still and facing away from her, and slid inside.


	7. Chapter 7: Imagined Audience

Lost & Lonely: A Phantom of the Opera Story  
Chapter 7: Imagined Audience

Freshman tours always included the lobby and grand foyer of the Garnier Theatre. They were impressive enough to win the hearts and wallets of any prospective student. Christine had stood transfixed by the beauty of the building as were all the others on the tour. She wondered at the cost of the marble columns. Questioned how many hours it had taken the artists to paint the murals on the high ceilings and apply the gold leaf to the arches. She was amazed at the grand staircases that branched off from one another in a maze of marble banisters and red carpets. But she had not seen the auditorium or stage in person. During her two tours of campus, the theatre was in the midst of its summer season, and no visitors were permitted into the auditorium. She was left with only the photographs in the brochure to give her an idea of what the auditorium and stage would be like. Those photographs were woefully inadequate.

The single ghost light sat on the empty stage. It burned diligently, preventing any unfortunate accidents during the hours when the theatre was not in use. By its meager light she could see the golden columns on each of the four tiers of seats and private boxes. It reflected off the gold-leafed caryatid figures holding the higher arches aloft. She could only barely make out their human forms in the dim light. She knew by the photographs that their bodies were clad in gilt togas revealing bare chest on man and woman alike. The ghost light reached the ceiling and sparkled off the cut glass dangling from the chandelier high above the floor. Again her mind filled in the missing details using the photographs and she imagined the mural that lay above the chandelier with its handsome and heavenly figures reaching skyward. Even when empty, the theatre was filled with people, painted and sculpted; an inanimate and imagined audience just for her. They would be her first audience in six years.

She walked down the aisle toward the stage, her anxiety vibrating in her chest; she felt the same level of panic approaching an unfriendly desk clerk at the registrar's office, so it was practically nothing on her Richter scale of panic attacks. The orchestra pit dropped down before her, but she knew that there would be a hidden door to either side that would allow her access. She carefully picked her way down the steps in the low light and found the other set of stairs that lead up toward the stage. If she felt like a pretender in the small vocal practice room, it was nothing to her feelings as she ascended those steps. The panic level rose with each step upward. As she finally touched the worn boards of the stage, she could feel her heart clench, her breath short, her stomach in knots.

I don't belong here, she thought, feeling herself on the precipice of one of her larger panic attacks.

Dad thought you did, another part of her replied.

The thought of her father soothed the anxiety. She had no response that could keep her in hysterics. Her father had believed that she could be the best. The man had spent hours training her and promoting her among his patrons. He wanted her to be known, to be famous and to sing on stages as large as this one. And it was large. She felt like a child standing on that vast and empty expanse of wood. She was tiny, insignificant, an insect.

Oh, go on, her voice had told her last night when she wanted to mimic the piano key's song. That push came again to her mind. It compelled her to try. She was alone, only the painted and carved figures would hear. She realized it could be the only chance she would have to stand on this stage without having someone watching, critiquing, criticizing. The thought of the eyes that would judge her made her panic spike, but she pushed it back. It was an irrational fear as there was no one in the audience. Fear for the 'what if's was her nature now. She had never had stage fright when her father was alive. The fear and panic only came after his death. Her father would have laughed at her for the panic she was feeling over people who weren't even there. She knew he would be right to laugh, and pushed her anxiety back a bit further with that knowledge.

Christine thought of why she had come to the theatre – to sing not to panic. She put her hand to her diaphragm and breathed deeply. She closed her eyes and sang.

Her voice rose to the painted figures on the ceiling. It touched the gilded ears of the men and women raising the arches of the highest level of private boxes. It somehow managed to fill every inch of the theatre. She kept her eyes closed and imagined that she had won a part in _Faust_, imagined that she wore the costume of Marguerite and was just testing her voice before the show began, imagined that her father and countless others were outside in that grand foyer waiting to come take their seats. The thought of all those people waiting to see her did not make her nervous or bring her anxiety stampeding back. It did not cause her voice to waiver; she felt pride and joy at the thought, and her voice grew stronger, higher. Her final note rose up and vanished into the dark.

"You remembered to breathe properly," her voice seemed to be smiling.

"I think it helped a lot, don't you?"

"Yes, your voice has improved since yesterday. That's impressive progress. With more effort it will get stronger, but I think we'll have to work on your enunciation as well as your range."

"My enunciation? Why?"

"You mumble when you sing."

"I do not."

"Please, your 'Benedicta tu in mulieribus' sounded more like 'Ben and tutu in miller bus," her voice informed her curtly. "If you have any hope to sing on stage professionally then you must improve your diction."

"And my range," Christine added in a grumble.

"Mumbling again."

"I know! But I'm not looking to sing professionally, I just want to get into the chorus, get extra credit and keep my scholarship. That's all!"

There was a long pause before Christine heard her voice respond. "How disappointing. Even without training, your voice is lovely. With my help you could win the role of Marguerite, but if you want to settle for anonymity…"

"I don't need to be Marguerite, but I would like help to get on stage in a small way."

"I am yours to command."

"Really?" She was beginning to think the voice was in command of her the way it was disapproving of her meager aspirations. She could think of only one way to test the voice's claim. "Then can you sound like someone else? I really don't like talking to myself."

"I can." The response came not in her own voice but in Meg's.

Christine laughed. "That's great! Who else can you sound like?"

"Anyone," said Mr. Lombardi's voice.

"Amazing! Can you sound like anyone I've ever heard?" Christine wondered aloud.

"Probably not," Mr. Lombardi replied again.

"No, I suppose not." She considered for a moment who she wanted the hallucinated voice to sound like. Her father would be her first choice, since he had been her teacher as a child. "Can you sound like dad?"

"I'd rather not."

"Yeah, that would be a little weird." Her brow knit together in thought. "I can't think of anyone, so why don't you pick."

"As you wish." The quiet response came in a voice she didn't know.

"Whose voice is that?"

"Does it matter?"

Christine thought it did matter. She was hearing voices, and not just her own. It was insanity. But despite that she wished she remembered whose this voice was. She wanted to meet him again. His voice was velvety smooth and deep enough that she felt it resonate in her chest when he spoke. His was a voice that would make any audiobook a bestseller, would make a documentary on the life of the kitchen sponge seem fascinating by his very narration. His was a voice that could control her with a single word. But she didn't think the voice would appreciate her drooling over it, since it was from her own imagination.

"I suppose not," she said. "But if you aren't talking like me anymore, what should I call you? Do you have a name? I mean, does that voice have a name?"

"You may call me Erik." His voice whispered in her ear causing her to jump at the perceived proximity.

"Eric?" She thought for a moment. "The only Eric I remember knowing used to put glue in my hair when I sat in front of him in the 3rd grade. I doubt he grew up to sound like you."

"I am not that Eric."

"Good. I hated that kid."

* * *

A/N: Yes, I'm taking plot liberties again. It is my way. And for those interested, I'm modeling my Garnier Theatre on the Budapest Opera House, the only opera house I've ever been to and one which looked surprisingly like the one of the 2004 Phantom film. Super awesome 360 views available at: budapestiutcak DOT com / Andrassy / ugyfel / Opera / Opera _ eng DOT html Remove the spaces and replace DOTs with, well, dots. :)


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